Of course, if you phrase your questions correctly you will get the answers you want . . .

"Are you satisfied with the route taken by the Enterprise between Dublin & Belfast ?"

Of course 9 out of 10 people are going to say yes. The 10th probably wanted it routed via Sligo, Bundoran, Derry & on to Belfast, but as the man says . . . . there's always one. Yes, I know the track isn't there, but that isn't going to stop yer man from wanting it.

Or they could have asked "Would you prefer if the Enterprise went from Dublin-Ballina, or are you satisfied with it going between Dublin & Belfast ?"

Asking this to passengers on a train somewhere between Dublin & Belfast is likely to result in at least a 90% satisfaction with the current routing. Asking this to people on the Ballina train might yield a different result.

Hi Folks,
i was one of the people that was questioned for the survey! It early last november. i can't remember all the questions, but quite a few were related to the catering on board They did ask about punctuality and comfort and what we thought of the customer service. What makes it funny from my view as it was not long after this survey that things really went down hill!! I am presuming they are only announcing the survey now in order to give the impression that people are happy with the service! If they did the same survey again today, I would be a lot more negative. My biggest problem to date is Iarnrod Eireanns lack of customer service especially in relation to Translink! My experience is such that you can tell immediately what company the person works for just by their manner!!! In that survey i did express my satisfaction for Translink customer Service but they didn't ask me about IE!! Thye said the survey was for Translink!

Thanks for that Tigger, your post just shows that this "survey" is what I thought it was - just an exerise in spin.

This is the sort of thing that I enjoy seeing time and again and i often ask myself this question: who is this aimed at? It surely cannot be the customers, who know that the service is terrible and will naturally disbelieve this story. It cannot be the people who drive instead due to heavy anecdotal evidence of the appalling situation. It must be therfore be aimed at the powers that be in the departments - they dont take the train and they may have no contact with it at all, excepet from seeing reports like this one.

You will also notice that there are others who will also simply swallow any line given out by a rail company. There's one on IRN telling me to stop moaning about this issue and we heard from one yesterday on newstalk after Mark was on making a point that was not only irrelevant but also surprisingly helpful to the company.

Well I rarely use enterprise but last three journeys, one in May, two in June.

1. Train operated by 3CK, no catering in front coaches, conductor was in full uniform and name badge. Train ran perfectly to time

2. Seat reservation cards missing and outdated ones in place, interior in need of deep clean, at least one toliet locked out of use. Ride was awful including a latteral sway which recorded as 0.93m/s^2 just short of 1G which is scary. Train guard not in full uniform and missing name badge. Train was 3 or 4 minutes late enroute

3. Seat reservation cards missing and outdated ones in place, interior in need of deep clean, seat cushion wasn't attached to the seat. Train guard not in full uniform and missing name badge. Depending on which timetable you check we where either 4 minutes late or 1 minute early.

Evidence from the ground indicates
1. Frequent use of alternative trains lacking facilities, at least on the Cork line the replacement can match the speed, catering, comfort and even provide first. Hard evidence exists for this

2. Condition of enterprise coaches substandard, interiors need a deep clean, just have a look at the window areas, exteriors are covered in filler

3. Ride is dire, senior IE people where at pains to tell us the Mk4 is better than Enterprise and we agree, the measurements agree. DeDetrich have been over and failed to produce a solution despite serious modifications.

4. It took several years to solve the parking brake issue, looks fixed now but who knows

5. Locomotive issues continue at a reduced rate but still frequently delays owing to the need to change engines.

6. Journey times are plain rubbish and thats primarly a issue for NIR as they have more speed restrictions than IE do, the record Belfast Dublin is 97 minutes held by a steam engine

7. Horror stories of being stranded, no air conditioning etc, no shortage of media coverage on this

8. Golorified commuter setvice, when it suits IE and NIR the train is downgraded to a stopping commuter service